Tuesday, August 07, 2018

Trump fiddles while the West burns

Fire officials in California first started keeping records in 1932, when the Matilija fire burned 220,000 acres. It would be 71 years before that record was broken by the Cedar fire (273,000 acres) in 2003. That record was very nearly broken 9 years later, by the Rush fire (272,000 acres) in 2012, then it was broken 5 years later by the Thomas fire in 2017 (282,000 acres). Now, less than one year after that, the record has been definitively shattered by the Mendocino complex fire, currently at 290,000 acres and still burning. Of the top ten largest fires in California, eight of them have been in the last 15 years.

Meanwhile, looking at the TFR (temporary flight restriction) map, the Western U.S. looks like it has broken out in a case of the measles:

Almost every one of those red areas is a wild fire burning sufficiently out of control to require air support (there are a few exceptions where the TFR has been issued for other reasons).

Donald Trump, of course, blames all this on environmentalism run amok. Because climate change is a hoax. Fake news. Nothing to see here. It's all being obscured by the smoke.